Editor's Note: This post forms part of a symposium being run by EJIL:Talk! and Opinio Juris in relation to Simon Chesterman's article "Asia's Ambivalence About International Law & Institutions: Past, Present, and Futures", which is available here in draft form, the final version appearing later this month in EJIL. Starting today, the two blogs are publishing a number of posts discussing the article, and we thank…

Eyal Benvenisti, LL.B (Jerusalem) 1984, LLM (Yale) 1988, JSD (Yale) 1990, is Anny and Paul Yanowicz Professor of Human Rights, Tel Aviv University Faculty of Law. To whom are sovereigns accountable? In 1609 King James I offered Parliament his answer. Starting from the premise that the "[e]state of the monarchy is the supremest…